Enjoy!

So here Dot is from our trip to a lovely lake in the Sierra Nevada range. We go every year.  Dot is a three window Globetrotter and that gives us a lot of light to play with inside the cabin.

When boondocking we use a solar panel. We’ve done this since 2001 when we purchased Dot. The panel (same one for ten years) charges two deep-cycle batteries.

Since most of our lighting has been converted to LEDs this is more than enough. We can even keep the laptops charged with no problem. Since I am a writer and my husband a workaholic, this is critical! ROFL.

This is the new Banquette in Action! Kyra, our dog, also loves the redo. We have a helluva time getting her out from under the table. Unfortunately, I ‘m slacking about getting the new upholstery finished. Ah well. The table leg is a single Ikea desk leg that we attached by embedding a bolt underneath the table top. We have a knob that screws onto the bolt and holds the leg on. It’s very stable. The table is attached to the trailer by a simple channel attachment we found at Airstream Dreams. However, I can say that if I were to do it again, I would find a simpler way to support the bed height. That channel attachment is a real cast iron b*tch to get installed properly after a long drive, when everyone is cranky and tired.

Here is a detailed view of the leg attachment. The metal plate is the base that came with the leg. We epoxied a bolt inside in pointing down. The orange knob is a cabinet pull we had in the garage. The top of the leg has a hole that we slip into the bolt then screw the knob over to secure the leg.

So here is  more cleaned up view of the Banquette. When the table is in “bed” mode it

rests on a channel attached to the trailer wall at bed level. We also  screwed & glued aluminum “L” channel under the top of the cabinet creating a lip that the table top rests on. The drawers are Ikea base cabinet drawers at 30″ and 36″. Fortuitously, the fronts do not come full height leaving a convenient handle. I am just so pleased with how this turned out! Now if I only did that damn upholstery…

I did a post last year that has more images of the banquette in process. You can find those here.

…And I will leave you one more. A view of the assembled but not installed pieces. We did the curve fitting with a compass and belt-sander after roughing the pieces. The drawers are installed here but the fronts are not. I had to make sure that the curves I cut would allowed the drawers to close! But that was not an issue at all, and the foot-room left was perfect for my husband and I and two (close) friends!

We are just delighted with this conversion. It has made the trailer more useful both on the road and at home. My husband  is currently using this as his temporary home office since our middle son has boomeranged.

Ah well.

Now that said, this work was done in 2007 and nothing stays the same, not even Ikea part numbers! So, please use the part number listing as a rough guide YMMV. I’ve also added links to images of the cabinets so you can see what they look like. The image on the left has the streetside gaucho pulled out into a bed so even with the new cabinets we still have a narrow if navigable walkway, at least that didn’t change. lol.

The basis for the kitchen is, of course, the Ikea cabinets. We used the white melamine and, as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, crafted specific sizes by combining two cabinets. For example, our tall cabinets are 18″ — but Ikea does not make an 18″ tall. No worries, just combine the bottom and top of a 18″ base cabinet and the tall sides of the 15″ tall and you have an 18″ tall cabinet. Yes you do have to buy two cabinets, but hello, they are $24 and we made good use of the other bits, too. Once you start thinking of Ikea as big Legos the world of home DIY opens in front of you like s&&t to a pig — or at least it did to me.

Be sure to check out the spanning bits at the bottom after the table.

The list….

Lagniappe

So we also floated the counter top in the kitchen. We installed the base cabinets on furring strips so that the doors would open then using Ikea Capita 3″ stainless steel legs to support the front of the counter. This left a 3″ cubby for storage of things like towels, trays and well anything you need to get off the counter. I honestly think this was one of the most spectacular things that we did in the redo. By doing this we essentially doubled our counter space. Holy Efficiency!

One final word. Stainless steel fittings, you will have invested so much time, spend the extra dollars and get quality joinery. We heart McMaster-Carr. Reasonably priced and if they don’t have it, you likely don’t need it.